


Unexpected Emptiness

by zosimos (trismegistus)



Series: Reverse'verse [57]
Category: Fullmetal Alchemist (Anime 2003)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-29
Updated: 2014-08-29
Packaged: 2018-02-15 05:19:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,595
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2217213
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trismegistus/pseuds/zosimos
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's always tough to be left behind.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Unexpected Emptiness

It was always the worst coming home knowing Rian wasn’t there. The flat seemed bigger, somehow, emptier - even though the furniture was crowded into rooms, the sofa sat nearly on top of Edward’s favorite battered armchair, and every room was full to bursting with books. He stayed at work late, would sleep in his office if he could get away with it but Riza had grown wise to this and would check in on him periodically. He had been chased off of base at quarter after too-fucking-late o’clock one Friday night by her concerned, if stern, gaze.

He kept the booze in the hutch - maybe once it had been orderly and clean but at some point Edward had stuffed pages in the dark cramped bottom cabinet between the bottles, so extricating one without causing a deluge of forgotten notes was a complicated task. One that was best performed sober, and even then often done incorrectly. His fingers brushed over a bottle near the back, dusty with neglect, and he hesitated. The whiskey hadn’t seen the light in years, and the last time he’d drunk from that bottle….

It still crept up on him, even after all these years. The emptiness, the strange pain that slithered into his belly and coiled tight around his stomach. Edward selected a bottle from the front, cognac, a gift from Havoc one Yule, and carried it into the kitchen.

Six weeks Rian had been gone and it had only taken one week for the kitchen to return to disorder. Edward nudged the dirty plates into the sink, and rooted through the cabinet for a clean glass. He hadn’t heard a word from him in that entire time, and the worry that lined the back of his throat was acidic. A garrison somewhere deep nor’west of Central had requested assistance from Central Command - and they were specific about wanting a State Alchemist’s aid. Alarm bells had gone off in Edward’s head at that - who specifically requests a STATE ALCHEMIST? - never mind intentionally passing the mission off to this particular garrison. It screamed a trap, and Edward did not want Rian going. If it was ….

But Edward himself couldn’t go. At his rank if he went, other soldiers went with him. A trade-off on the power he had now was that he didn’t have the freedom to move like he once did. There was no choice, he had to pass the mission off to Rian. He couldn’t ignore a garrison’s request for aid, no matter how fishy.

He had to wonder if Roy felt this same fear, every time he handed a file off across his desk. Edward didn’t know how he kept it off his face or out of his voice, the bastard had rubbed off on him in more ways than he liked to think about. Rian was cocky like Edward once was (like he still was, his brother would be the first to point out), and not for the first time Edward wished he had another State Alchemist, another soldier he could spare, someone to go with Rian and keep an eye on things. Edward used to dive in to dangerous situations headfirst, never looking to see if there was even a bottom before he jumped in. He was fortunate to have Alphonse at his back to keep watch over him, otherwise he wouldn’t be here today.

Edward’s self-deprecating smirk reflected in the amber liquid. If he hadn’t had Alphonse at his back, he wouldn’t have been in the dangerous situations in the first place. He would likely be already dead, the Gate utterly consuming him for his sins.

He sat at the table with his head in his hand, glass cradled by automail and stared at nothing. There had been no time to see Rian off, the day had been full of meetings and he had glanced at the clock and Rian’s train had come and gone. Their relationship was an open secret, Edward knew exactly how dangerous it was that they lived together. It was a weapon that the brass was waiting to use against him he was sure of it, but all the same the soldiers never came for him. 

But six weeks. Six long, lonely weeks - Rian had been gone longer, gone for months but their relationship hadn’t really started yet, then. He had gotten good at sending the boy away, trying to forget those tantalizingly familiar dark eyes and hair that reminded him all too much of someone he could never have again. That was before the need had settled in, before the second toothbrush appeared in the bathroom, before the other side of the bed started smelling slightly of ozone. 

(It was a strange smell, all things considered - like the scent before the spark, like the way the sulfer-smell clung to Roy even when he hadn’t used his gloves. It smelled of air and clean and outside in ways that defied description, it was a scent so uniquely Rian’s that Edward felt he could source it from across a crowded room, if he had to.)

The ice cracked, clinking against the glass and Edward put it down, slid a hand over his eyes, and felt the weight of the world straining at his shoulders. 

(What would he do if-)

(no)

It was too late, it was too early, the alcohol churned in his already unsettled stomach. Edward drained the glass, felt the burn as the booze seared his throat, trying to drown the thoughts out. He left the glass on the counter and fell face-first on the bed, atop the rumpled covers, just the way he’d left them in the morning.

 

* * *

 

It felt like someone was dragging sandpaper across his forehead. A wet, small piece of sandpaper, again and again until the skin went raw. Edward cracked his eyes open, bleary and gummy and glared at the watery gray light that drifted through the open curtains. Then he shifted his glare to the kitten - not so much a kitten any more, batting at his bangs with one paw, claws respectfully sheathed.

Edward glowered at the gray tabby who, now that Edward had opened his eyes, threw herself with gusto at the automail hand sticking out from under the pillow clutched to his chest. Edward twitched the fingers for her sleepily as she stalked them, tiny claws pinging off the metal without doing a whit of damage. He shouldn’t be encouraging this, she would do the same with claws if he was sleeping with the other arm out, but he wasn’t awake enough to care.

He had curled around Rian’s pillow, and waking to an empty bed left a hollow feeling in his stomach. He lifted his left hand and batted the cat in the head, scritching her ears and distracting her mission of slaying the spectre of evil that was his right hand. She started purring, content, and Edward smiled. Rian had named her Dickens.

She followed him into the bathroom, tail straight in the air. He was still dressed, clothing sleep-rumpled, and it was way too fucking early to be awake. Edward rinsed his mouth out, washed his face, and glared at the cat on the back of the toilet. 

(When had he let the cat in?)

Feed the cat, turn on the percolator. He remembered Rian crouched on the floor, feeding the fluffy grey furball who had mewled like a demon, nearly tripping face-first into the food bowl. The smile quirked across his face almost before he could catch it.

Six weeks, the voice whispered in his head. He could be gone, this could be all that’s left, you’re left alone again, anyone who loves you they always, always leave-

Coffee to drown out the voice, radio for the rest. That damned cat followed him around the house - sitting on the table watching him read the papers, despite being ushered off twice; followed him into the bathroom AGAIN (this time Edward put his foot down, and instead watched the tiny gray paws bat underneath the door, as if she could squirm through the inch and a half the door sat above the floor) and about the rest of the house as he puttered around. It was a Saturday, if he went into the office Riza would skin him alive, what a change THAT was. 

In the end he settled into his arm chair with coffee and a book - reading for pleasure for once, not simply research; a tome on physics that was just published by the local university - and Dickens walked right across the pages, before jumping up to settle behind his head. Edward leaned forward with a sigh, looked back, but she had started washing her face. “Al laughed when I told him Rian had a cat,” he told her. “I hate him.”

The post fell through the mail slot; the Saturday delivery was spotty at best and most of the mail was just junk. Edward got a fair amount of letters on some occasions, usually other alchemists who had tracked down his home address and often got immediately binned. (There were proper channels for those sorts of things, and if Edward tried to fulfill every request he received he would never have time for anything else. And while he would gladly throw the military under the bus and flit about doing whatever the fuck he wanted, that wasn’t what Roy would have done.) He flipped through the letters - and paused, his fingers stopped on familiar, if slightly shaky, handwriting, addressed to him by name, not rank.

Edward smiled.

_Rian._


End file.
